Most clubs already have a website of some kind and a separate spreadsheet of members and a separate way of taking subs. A membership website joins those three jobs into one connected thing. This guide covers what that actually involves, so a committee can make an informed decision instead of guessing.
What a Membership Website Needs
Strip it back and a club membership website is three parts working together.
- A public website - news, events, photos, and a clear way to join or get in touch. The bit the world sees.
- A members-only area - a login-protected section for documents, directories, fixtures, or whatever members should see and the public should not.
- Membership records - one list of who is a member, what category they are, what they have paid, and when they are due to renew.
The thing that makes it a membership website rather than a normal one is that those three parts share data. A member signs up on the public site, their record is created, and they can log straight into the member area. Renewals update the records automatically. Nobody is re-typing names into a spreadsheet.
The Build Options for a Club
There are four realistic routes. Each suits a different size and type of club.
1. A Page Builder With a Members Add-On
Wix, Squarespace and similar all offer a members area as a paid extra. You build it yourself in their editor. It is the cheapest route on paper and genuinely fine for a small group - under about 30 members, one membership category, no real need for online payments. The friction shows up as the club grows: the members area and payments are separate paid add-ons, the real bill drifts towards £50-£90 a month, and one volunteer ends up owning a build nobody else understands.
2. WordPress With a Membership Plugin
WordPress plus a plugin like a membership or paid-memberships extension can do a lot. It is flexible and not expensive in licence terms. The catch is maintenance: WordPress and its plugins need regular updates, the plugins occasionally conflict, and security patching is on you. It works well when the club has a genuinely technical volunteer who is not going anywhere. It goes wrong when that volunteer moves on and the committee inherits a site they cannot safely touch.
3. Hire a Developer to Build It
A freelancer or agency builds a custom membership website. You get something fitted to the club, but the traditional model is a large upfront cost - often £4,000 to £10,000 - and then a separate ongoing arrangement for hosting and changes. It produces a good result if the budget is there. Many committees cannot find that kind of money up front.
4. A Done-For-You Subscription
A custom membership website built for you, hosted and maintained, on a flat monthly fee instead of a big upfront bill. No editor to learn, no plugins to patch. This is the model Nene IT uses - £30/month for a public site, £50/month for the full membership website with a member area and online subs. It suits committees who would rather spend volunteer time running the club than building a website. It is not the right call for a 20-member group that genuinely only needs a brochure page.
The Steps, in Order
Whichever route you pick, the sensible order is the same. Doing it in this sequence means the club always has something usable.
- Get the public site live first. News, events, contact, a clear join page. Members and prospective members have somewhere proper to look while the rest gets built.
- Add member sign-up and payment. People can join online and pay there and then. This is the single biggest win - it stops the committee doing data entry and chasing money.
- Add the members-only area. Logins, the handful of documents and pages members actually need, self-service for updating their own details.
- Add renewals and reminders. Automated renewal reminders, online renewal, a view for the treasurer of who has paid.
- Add anything club-specific last. Bookings, event entries, directories - the workflows unique to your club. Built once the core is solid.
The Gotchas Committees Hit
- Building everything before launching anything. Clubs that wait for the perfect finished site often never launch. Get the public site up early.
- The members area that does too much. Members use it for four things - login, pay, update details, find a couple of documents. Surface those; bury the rest.
- Forgetting the handover. Committees change. Whatever you build needs to be runnable by next year's secretary without a crisis. Written one-page guides help; a build only one person understands does not.
- Per-member pricing creeping up. Some platforms charge per member. Every new member becomes a cost. Check before you commit.
- Member data on one laptop. The whole point is one shared record. If the membership list is still a spreadsheet in one person's email, the website is not really a membership website yet.
What It Should Cost
Roughly, by route: a page builder with add-ons lands around £50-£90/month once it is doing the job, plus volunteer build time. WordPress is cheap in licences but real in maintenance time. A developer build is £4,000-£10,000 upfront plus ongoing. A done-for-you subscription is £30-£50/month all in. The right answer depends less on the headline number and more on whether the club has the volunteer time and technical confidence to own a build itself.
If you would rather talk it through than read more numbers, get in touch - no hard sell, just an honest view on which route fits your club. Or see exactly what a built membership website includes.
Membership Website FAQs
How long does it take to build a membership website for a club?
It depends on the route and scope, but the sensible approach is staged - the public site goes live early, then sign-up and payments, then the member area, then renewals. The club has something usable from the first stage rather than waiting for a single finished launch.
Do members need to download an app?
No. A membership website works in a normal web browser on a phone, tablet or laptop. A branded mobile app can be added later if it genuinely helps, but it is never required to have a working membership website.
Can we move our existing member spreadsheet across?
Yes. A spreadsheet, a current platform or even paper records can all be imported. The member list ends up in one place the whole committee can see, with members able to keep their own details current.
What is the difference between a membership website and club management software?
A membership website is the starting point - public site, member area, online subs. Club management software is the fuller picture - bookings, event entries, committee dashboards, communications - built on the same member records. Clubs that need that scale usually start with the membership website and grow into the wider system.